Us
by Andrea Weiling
Summary: Hiei has left Kurama, and Kurama has decided to leave everything in Ningenkai behind to go after Hiei. But is Kurama really going into Makai because of Hiei? Chapter 5 - Kurama brings himself to leave Shiori, his human mother.
1. Speechless

Us   
A Yu Yu Hakusho fic   
  
Chapter 1: Speechless   
  
Why did it seem different?   
During dinner I could see something was bothering him, but I wasn't sure what.   
I could find out that answer readily enough, and I had a pretty good guess at what it was   
too, but I bide my time. He would tell me sooner or later, and I didn't want to push him.   
It was probably just an early calling from Mukuro to go back soon to Makai because something   
had happened there. This troubled me a little, because he wouldn't have been so agitated   
on such a little thing; in fact, he would've just ignored the call and say his full two   
weeks here. That is, unless it was something very threatening to Mukuro's territory of   
land. Then he would be practically dragged back there to fight and get scars and Inari   
knows what other trouble he would get into. I smiled at the thought of the word 'trouble';   
there was trouble that followed the Urameshi Team wherever they went. We hid, Trouble   
sought, and found. There was no hiding. But it looked serious this time, and it also   
looked like I wouldn't be seeing him here for much longer. He only came around a few times   
a year, and in those times I was determined to make the best of them. I tried to please him   
(he's very, very hard to please), but even when I did absolutely nothing and stare into   
those eyes that x-rayed through me, seeming to read my very thoughts I could feel a tinge of   
content in his ki, and I was happy. I was always happy if he was. Trying so hard to make   
him completely happy was hard, but when it seemed I couldn't think of anything, he would   
just take me aside and look at me, just look at me, and his gaze would seem to soften.   
Whether this was just my imagination or not I was not quite sure, but he convinced me that   
it was real that night (*snickers*). Some months back he touched my shoulder lightly and   
then we seemed to see each other as we never did before. My eyes welled up with tears when   
I saw that feeling in his eyes, mirroring back at me, so pure as I never knew he could be.   
Every meal prepared, every walk we shared, every coin and dollar saved and spent it was   
worth it all if it was for him. I loved him and that was it. Plain and simple as that.   
  
He was worried now, his eyebrows frowning a little as if he just thought of an   
unpleasant thought. At this I felt I had enough of this hiding thing and put down my   
chopsticks with a slight, but firm 'clink' perpendicular to the bowl, thus signaling I   
wanted to talk. When he didn't look up, I knew he was listening, so I went on ahead and   
opened my mouth and started to clear my throat when he looked at me with those brilliant   
eyes. And I was startled, frightened by that foreign look in his eyes, and for a moment my   
guard was down and scattered and broken on the ground as his eyes seemed to fasten on and   
zoom in on me like a camera lens, as if I was his next target to kill. The hostility that   
seemed to block all escape from me seemed to tie me up and beat me as I tried to turn away,   
but found I couldn't, I was so shocked. The air around seemed just to freeze, and though my   
mouth was open and ready to speak, no words came out, and I'm sure that if there had been   
words, they would've been gibberish, nonsense. Then it kicked in that I could do something   
about it, and over my face the guard fell again, and again I cleared my throat.   
  
And he looked away, and that aura of tense feeling disappeared, vanished. As I   
cleaned up plates and chopsticks and ran the damp cloth over the surface of the table to   
wash it, I could feel his eyes, his gaze hot on my back, and it made me giddy and nervous.   
There was something wrong, terribly wrong now, and it had to do with me. All thought of   
'Mukuro' were erased from my mind, and instead I was thinking, thinking hard of what I might   
have done wrong these last few visits. Had I done anything in the last few days? I had   
gone along with anything he said (although he usually had no opinion for 'ningen'   
activities), taken to eat the 'sweet ice' that he loved, taken him to a festival and just   
generally spent time with him. There was nothing wrong with that, right?   
  
Right?   
  
Absently I turned the sink faucets full on the hot, half on left, and pushed up my   
sleeves. I emptied just enough dishwasher soap into the sink and carefully dipped my hands   
into it, wincing slightly as it burned a little. I adjusted the cold faucet a notch more,   
and then dipped my hands in. Taking a plate from the rack, I felt him approach, and knew he   
was coming to tell me now what was wrong. I was afraid now, just a bit, because I knew   
this couldn't be something small and trivial. So I did what I usually did when I was   
washing the dishes or feeling scared. I talked, and out of my mouth came the ridiculous   
story a few days ago about Yuusuke's failed attempt at cooking for a sick Keiko. In the   
very end, part of the kitchen wall blew up and gave way to nature, all sorts of animals of   
all shapes and sizes, inviting them to open the refrigerator and grab something to eat. It   
was disastrous, and Yuusuke was given more than enough slaps to last him a lifetime from his   
furious wife. I described in detail, half-listening to my murmur, half-wondering. My   
hands did the dishes automatically; I didn't worry about the dishes, only about what he had   
to say. I could feel a bit of puzzlement, and I realized he didn't know I was listening or   
being serious in my words or if I really couldn't hear him over the clink and clatter of   
dishes. I chattered on, the sink almost overflowing with bubbles, and I let the drain out a   
little, all the time talking about Yuusuke and Keiko. Unwitting the subject turned to the   
newly-weds' unborn little girl, but I wasn't listening to what I was saying at this point,   
and I could tell that neither was he. He had seen through it, and now I braced myself for   
his words, whatever it maybe.   
  
"Kurama", he said softly, his voice almost unheard over the dishes, soft and   
apologic. "It's over."   
  
The heavy plate currently in my hand slipped, fell through the water, bubbles rising   
from the flip side of the dish, and promptly shattered against the bottom of the sink.   
  
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /   
  
Author's note:   
Well, this isn't my first attempt at YYH fanfiction, but this IS the first one I   
deem worthy enough to put online. Please enjoy. This is a songfic, but lyrics come in the   
next chapter. I didn't originally plan the first chapter to be this long; I was just going   
to write about the dishes part, but I then I thought, "What the heck? Add the dinner in   
there too!" and so I did. But I hope you like it so far.   
  
Andrea Weiling


	2. A Veil Over My Eyes

Ch.2: A Veil On My Eyes  
  
[I want to know why  
  
You're letting this die  
  
Without the blink of an eye]  
  
Hiei's red eyes glared, then he spun heel and was gone.  
  
I stared at the hole in the fabric of reality that he had once inhabited, that place that was right by my side, and felt my hand tremble. Carefully I washed the rest of the dishes, my hands more sure and more secure than they had ever been in a life-or-death crisis mission on the Urameshi Team. But gradually I felt as if the stack of plates would never end, that somehow the pearly bubbles in the sink had turned a sick gray instead of a glossy rainbow reflection, that somehow the oily water that stuck to my hands and the fermenting scent of lemon that soured in my senses were some sort of disease that only I could feel at the moment. They poked at my sorrow, my frustration and self-guilt, and then at my anger. Gradually my movements became angry; my scrubbing became furious as if I could rip that picture of Hiei off the back of my eyelids where it had been firmly pasted. Finally when I reached for another plate and found none, and seeing instead a stack of plates, pots and pans to dry, I grabbed the topmost plate and hurled it against the wall.  
  
My pride was irked. How dare he treat me like some common whore! Had he forgotten his place?  
  
But just as soon as it came, my anger disappeared. And my rational mind became to turn its wheels - there must have been some reason. But in the deepest depths of my heart, I analyzed that I was still trying to cling to any possible reason for his leaving when I was so happy, trying to see how he couldn't have been happy too. Was it possible that I had read him wrong, me, a thousand year old demon of experience in the ways of life?  
  
Perhaps, then, we had never been more than very close friends. Certainly demons had been that way; we had simply been friends with benefits - in Makai, lovers were less close than the relationship that Hiei and I shared, they were simply just beings that took pleasure in each other's bodies whereas Hiei and I had actually trusted the other to guard the other's back. And still it didn't stop there; we genuinely enjoyed each other's company, even if there was never much to be said between us. I thought perhaps it were enough that I would lightly touch his shoulder once in a while to show I was still there for him, or put a soft hand to his cheek to show I still cared, or bring him food to eat when he was hurt, simply take care of him when he needed the relief from the stress of being heir to one of the three kingdoms of Makai. We were less lovers than friends; in fact, we had diminished all sexual activity to a trickle after that one day when I had seen myself in his eyes.  
  
I knew, though, why he had dropped me so fast. He was frightened, scared almost witless of me now that he had seen I was not just a human, but also a very old demon. Even more so, he was afraid to give a heart to a formerly promiscuous youko infamous for bringing lovers and killing them in bed. Yes, it had been a rather consuming hobby in my past life - a lifetime that felt like an infinitely long time ago - and Kuronue had been the only one smart enough to compromise with me. And while my ningen side fiercely denied that it could possibly be inhabited by a bloodthirsty demon, I could feel no shame for what I had done. Somehow my human heart hadn't reflected that deeply on my demon heart yet.  
  
I had lived here for fifteen years and I had changed. Was it possible that he couldn't tell whether or not I was pretending? Was he afraid that everything that I had said and everything that I had done had been a farce? Or, perhaps I thought with my youko mind, this was a test, a test to see to what lengths would I do to get him back. If that was the case, then he was more intuitive than I had previously judged. He had sensed my own inner turmoil, that balance I was trying to strike between lovers and friends, even before I had actually acknowledged it myself.  
  
Realizing I had been staring blankly at the opposite wall for the last ten minutes, I bent slowly to pick up the pieces of white ceramic that littered the (once) clean kitchen tiles. Cradling the pieces in both hands, I threw one handful into the trash bin and then started to gather pieces on another section of the floor. As I picked up the second handful of large pieces, I felt a sudden surge of anger. Why would he be afraid of me? Hadn't I watched his back for so long now, making sure that nothing would happen to him? Was he afraid that I was preparing to use him someday, to gain his loyalty now and then kill him later? DID HE REALLY THINK THAT MY TIME IN THE HUMAN WORLD WOULD TEACH ME NOTHING?  
  
Gradually I came to my senses through that red haze of anger, and saw that one of the glazed chips had gouged deeply into my hand. It didn't hurt very much, particularly because as a youko I had been used to hurting my hand on all sorts of traps that I encountered on my way to steal things, but somehow as I looked down at my bloody hand I felt as if I wanted to cry. There was just so much desolation, suddenly, that void in front of me and the repeating question in my head: how could I possibly live without Hiei when we had come so far?  
  
My eyes blurred. With only my straining will, I pulled those tears back and vented my anger by throwing the second handful of plate pieces into the trash. As I lifted my hand instinctively to suck on it, a small hand caught mine and red eyes examined the cut expertly. After a moment Hiei looked up and answered in a monotone, "You should get that bandaged."  
  
I had a sudden urge to strangle him, but I beat it down quickly. Sophisticated Shuiichi Minaminos did not freak out or get angry. I retrieved my hand with perhaps more force than I usually did, and questioned stiffly in return, "Where did you go?"  
  
"Outside. Mukuro called me. Emergency on the mountain frontier. Apparently some half-civilized barbarians from the north where no one rules have decided to commit suicide."  
  
I gave a chilly smile. "Oh yes, they won't last three minutes with you there."  
  
He didn't seem to take the hint, but at least he kept silent. But I had the sneaking suspicion that he was laughing at me, mocking me. That caused me another flare of youko pride and anger. No one insulted the Youko Kurama  
  
Rubbing my hand absently, I swept the pieces of broken dish into the dishpan and dumped it into the trash. Wiping the plates dry absently, I stared at the wall in avid fascination as my mind whirled with casual death threats and the occasional "What if Hiei was mine to torture right now?". After five minutes, he caught my hand and then ripped off the ward concealing his Jagan. He stared down at my hand like it was the most interesting specimen a biologist had ever come upon, and then began to tie with measured vagueness. Inwardly I snorted. You'd think it took Kuwabara two minutes to decide whether or not he would spare his coat to wrap me in it if I was mortally wounded. For Hiei to have taken five minutes to deliberate a cut from a shard of ceramic dish was laughable. Their IQs really DO have a large difference in their actions, don't they?, Youko Kurama laughed merrily at his own joke in my head.  
  
When he was done, I tore my hand away and continued wiping dishes and staring into space as if nothing had happened. In fact, though, my senses were more alert on him than they had ever been. Why had he done that? He had obviously meant to cut ties with me in all places except for those that involved participation in the Urameshi Team. Those could not be helped. An irritated flare of anger burst out of me again, fueled by Youko Kurama's unstoppable pride. It couldn't possibly be that he pitied me, did he?  
  
Well, certainly I had had better friends and better lovers than he had been. And while my human side would certainly suffer from the lack of compassion for Hiei, my youko side would only complain that I wouldn't get to torture him. But Kurama, that side of me that wasn't youko and wasn't human, was always the last voice of all to speak, and I had decided that I would just simply do as he asked.  
  
I chanced a glance at him as I carried the dishes to the cupboard. He looked like he was furiously concentrating on something. Probably another message from Mukuro. To my surprise, after a moment he looked up almost shyly and asked, "Is there anything I can do around here?"  
  
My human side clapped comically at the revival of manners in a fellow demon. Youko Kurama rolled his eyes, and me? I raised an eyebrow and answered negative in a curt way. He didn't look particularly crestfallen, but I could see self-disappointment in those eyes. Just what was wrong with him, couldn't he see that HE was the one who needed pity, not me? Perhaps he was doing it satisfy his own self-gratification, but certainly I didn't need to participate.  
  
"Trying to escape Mukuro?", I said in a not-very-conversational manner.  
  
He gave a disgruntled look in the general direction of the nearest gate to Makai and grumbled that Mukuro could take care of her own damned business. Well, one thing that we can agree on, I told myself, and raised another eyebrow at his answer. In all cases, I would have told him to use less foul language in the presence of other humans because humans looked down on those people who use swear words every other word. In this case, though, I kept my mouth tightly shut and concentrated on microwave-heating the box I had put in the refrigerator the day before. I could feel his expectation that I would say more than that, but I was determined to say nothing more. When the package was toasty, I wrapped it in several layers of cloth and then put it in the warmest lunchbox I had (one of those American ones), and then packed a bottle of water, a pair of chopsticks and a handkerchief. As I did this I could feel his annoyance turn to curiosity. Why in the world would I be packing a lunch so close to midnight?  
  
I handed the lunchbox to him. He took it numbly. Suddenly I saw him understand. "You're sending me out already?", he said, and I could feel him try not to sound too desperately needy.  
  
"Of course", I answered firmly, and ushered him to the door, picking up his extra bag that I'd packed from a few times before on the way to the door, full of clothes that he had brought from the times before but had forgotten to take back to Makai. He struggled to loosen my grip on his arm, but I held tight. Finally when we reached the door he wrenched himself out of my grasp and snarled, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"  
  
I clicked my tongue between my teeth and answered primly, "Your excuse about that emergency that Mukuro sent you sounds really serious. I figured it would be best if you went on your way now, to save her any unnecessary stress." I could see his eyes go clear up into confusion and disbelief that I would ever care for Mukuro's health - which I didn't, because she could take care of herself. "So, your lunch is packed for your way there and you have your spare clothes and you're all set to go!" I smiled as cheerfully (and falsely, all teeth) at him and opened the door.  
  
[You say that you need time]  
  
He looked suddenly uncomfortable, then his eyes seemed to reach a resolution, a final decision. "Kurama!", he blurted out suddenly, "I do. . .I swear I do l-lo.", he trailed off. "I just need more time to figure things out - I swear!"  
  
[I say you'll be fine]  
  
And suddenly I couldn't stop being angry. I could feel my face twist into a frightening frown. "Don't you dare give me that!", I hissed suddenly, feeling the youko in my veins more strongly than I had even at the Ankoku. "You'll be fine without me, yes you will, just run back there at Mukuro's whim now and obey her commands carefully! You'll make the good little heir and one day you'll be the good little ruler of all of Makai as well, won't you?" I ripped my hand through my hair and drew out a rose, then threw it in his face. "More time! I'll give you more time - all eternity to think about your mistake!"  
  
Perhaps what he did was purely instinctive, but he opened his Jagan to look at me.  
  
Immediately I slammed all mental wards up. He staggered back from the shock of being blocked, but not before I had pushed him out the door. I did one last thing before I slammed the wood block in his face - I unwound the ward he had used to tie up my hand and felt the sticky liquid began to flow again. Clenching the ward in my fist, I threw out my hand and splashed his Jagan with my blood.  
  
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / /  
  
Author's notes:  
  
Okay. So I haven't written this since 2001. But since I got so many reviews for it, I thought, "Why not? It was a good idea". So, here it is back again. I don't know when the next chapter will be up, though. . .I might lose inspiration for it again.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	3. Though the Dream Has Ended

Ch.3: Though the Dream Has Ended  
  
For a moment, I just leaned on the door and let the terrible truth of what I'd just done wash over me. But in an instant that was also swept away and I laughed in relief. He was gone, that intruder in my territory - that sensitive human territory that I'd just learned to use in the last seventeen years - and the youko inside of me fiercely hoped that he would never return. Though I could never do to him what I'd done to so many past lovers in bed (which was kill them), the youko inside of me could certifiably do it during the daytime. But even as I laughed, I backed from the door in the most cautious manner possible, not allowing myself to touch the wood any more than I had to. Already my thoughts were thinking more friendly thoughts towards entering and exiting through the window instead of the door. Weakness, that was what it was - by now, there was more than just a wooden door between the two of us, there were probably three kilometers as well - but that door represented everything that I had done to PUSH HIM OUT OF MY LIFE.  
  
The human side of me shuddered and bent in self-pity, but the youko side of me was angrier than ever, at myself and at Hiei. How could a petty, low-life fire demon stroll into my heart like that? And more than ever, the youko was screaming at the human side of me, the one that somehow had become all the more influential in all matters of daily life in the past few years. That side of me was purely human; it was still growing like any human teenager would, with new ideas developing in that head and growing maturity all the time. The youko side did not share its experience with life with the human because still the human couldn't see how people could be cruel, unkind, could like causing themselves and other pain because in some morbid way it was beautiful, or that killing was always justifiable, from all points of view. Now, at the ultimate betrayal, the only thing it ever did was weep.  
  
And Kurama, my not-youko-not-human-but-some-odd-fusion, wasn't willing to go either way. The best course of action, all three parts of my mind agreed, was to just resort to isolationism for a little while, and then make sure I never saw Hiei ever again. It wouldn't be all that hard, I supposed; I could politely decline any mission given by Koenma to the Urameshi Team that included Hiei (after all, there were several solo or duo missions given before) or request another partner, and I only had to keep Hiei away from my human counterpart, whose feelings for the fire demon would certainly grate against the youko's usual course of action. I only had to wait seventy or eighty years for that human aspect to die, of course, and then I would be able to return to Makai as Youko Kurama, in heart and mind.  
  
Not that I relished the coming. I, as Kurama and as Youko Kurama, was afraid that returning to Makai would erase all traces that I had been among humanity, in so-described 'primitive' Ningenkai to all those demons in Makai, for an entire eighty or so years. This was an experience I didn't want to forget - surely, the dormant feelings of 'sympathy', 'forgiveness', and 'love' had been lost to me before and that was not the best thing I'd like to remember as the Youko, but the entire ride as a human being had been somehow a refreshing change. Perhaps it had been because I never had to run in this world - I never had to hide anymore with Koenma's protection over me (somewhat). At this thought, my youko side denied all charges - I mean, when did you ever see a demon who was bored of killing? - but somehow I had become weary of Makai along the way. Or, perhaps it was the emotions that I had felt as a human. I couldn't be sure.  
  
Which brought us back to Hiei. The youko side slammed down the ultimatum: damn, he couldn't even say the "L" word, so he didn't mean anything. And slowly, the human side of me began to see what the youko was getting at. Only me, that not-youko-not-human Kurama, remained undecided.  
  
I was a fusion of both worlds, for better or for worse. I had the sentimentality of a human but the cunning mind of a youko, and so it was hard to ride the ultimate path without appeasing my human side's want to never kill anyone. Of course, the youko had a stronger influence over the middle Kurama, but human emotional influence was there as well. I walked a very thin path in never wanting to hurt anyone but wanting to punish those who needed to be punished. Innocents could never be hurt or even witness my destructive power. And yet that inner sense of pride that the youko had, that damnably big ego, determined more of my actions than my human counterpart did.  
  
[If you could only see  
  
Like you did before]  
  
But how in the world could I throw away something that I had wholeheartedly poured out my soul to do? To have finally arrested the courage, to have hardened my mind to the ultimate disappointment that might have cracked my human mind from the pain of rejection - I had survive all of that to find that Hiei did, indeed, care for me. That had been the peak of the human inside of me, all of those feelings had overtaken the youko's impulse to take and then run. The question lay rather in what Hiei was afraid of me doing - certainly I had suppressed the youko inside of me for so long in his presence, was he afraid of it rising up? But the youko had agreed with this truthful, close friendship like Hiei and I shared, as sentimental and human as it was (the youko usually disagreed with anything that involved being human); it had offered a new outlet for emotion that even youko's had to feel after a century or two.  
  
My mind was shut, the thoughts milling like ants, spreading in every direction like running water. And suddenly I knew there must be something big that I must have missed along the way.  
  
It was never like Hiei to leave me hanging like this. It was a clue, I knew this because Hiei, as blunt as he usually was, could be sneaky when he wanted to be. What did I have to see, though, that had diminished our relationship? Had it be that lack of physical closeness - perhaps he hadn't wanted that lack of sex? He could have asked, then, and somehow I doubted for that particular need he would have been shy to ask, having heard how promiscuous I was with sex in the centuries before. Had it been, then, that he preferred the crafty mind of the youko that had prevailed in my younger human years than to this sentimental one?  
  
What had I become blind to?  
  
[You became imprisoned  
  
Can I reopen the door?]  
  
I knew that he didn't approve of my staying in Ningenkai because of my human mother, Shiori, but I had always supposed that he realized in the end that it didn't really matter because I would never change my mind anyway. I thought he had given up on that line of argument - but apparently not. Unless it was something other than that. I tried to think of any other long-running arguments we staged every time he found time to get away from Mukuro, and deemed all the rest unworthy of possible abandonment. In fact, the excuse of Shiori seemed pretty flimsy as well.  
  
Something big. What had I been missing?  
  
Most of all I feared that somehow I had been the cause of this. As a demon, I understood how the human world could change a demon's heart to good even if it was a corrupted as mine. I knew that Hiei refused all attempts to be "humanized", trying to keep his arrogant demon pride even when in Ningenkai, only tolerating human moderately. However, Hiei had been here enough times to have opened eyes and experiences; had his link to me somehow been strong enough to have let him recognize the face of humanity and its heart? Even now I could touch my heart and say very truthfully that I believed that I was human, perhaps not fully but certainly somewhat in spirit. I had always believed that Hiei would always remain the stubborn fire demon he had always been to me simply because he never believed in humanity. But if it had changed me, a demon with the will to steal, hurt, and kill innocents, then what of the habits of a surly fire demon?  
  
I also knew Hiei enough that he felt conflicts of the heart sharply. Certainly a human development of the heart would be considered 'soft' in all his demon opinion (which was the one he usually voiced), but that was not to say there was no existing human heart beating inside of him. To feel that pull of both human and demon would have been suffocating for him when he could appease neither in his line of work. It would have been both an paradise and a prison to come to Ningenkai, where these human emotions grew and festered deep inside of a demon heart. Demons weren't meant to feel sympathy, love, nor any rudimentary emotions except anger. He would have went to Makai and stayed there, just to deny that his new emotions never existed (and knowing him, he probably would have been able to keep it that way). Then it would have been the demon inside of him completely dominant, and those human emotions would have been crushed. Yukina had probably been the only thing keeping him abandoning the Ningenkai at all.  
  
As for the question whether or not he could see that human emotions were NOT a liability (especially when Hiei had me to cover his back), I could see that was conflict inside of him as well. Ningenkai had not done any good to Hiei mentally. He was now more confused than ever.  
  
But why leave without telling me? It wasn't just for this one selfish reason that he would have left. He would have told me if that happened. . .instead he had simply told me that he wanted to cut ties. There was something bigger. I was sure of it.  
  
I had been walking up the steps when suddenly I felt my heart lurch and stumbled into the wall. There was pain there, human pain of the heart, the final cry of desperation that Hiei couldn't hear because he was kilometers away now, but all the same it was my human heart and mind, screaming out as one. Hurt melted the edges of my world in cold heat, then shattered into a million pieces. Was this how it felt to fall in love as a human and be thrown away? In this case, it would have been better to have died seventeen years ago than to have found shelter in this frail form.  
  
No tears came. I think I shed them all inwardly.  
  
For once, my youko side was silent, watching the transformation of my human side from passivity and appeasement to clear crimson, unbridled anger that could have shaken the heavens themselves. But the motivation for my human side's anger was simply infused with demon pride and then with human determination. Perhaps it wasn't rather that the human was angry at Hiei, but rather at the fact that it could feel the betrayal as strongly as it did.  
  
Only I, Kurama the not-youko-not-human, hung back a little. How quickly things changed. I could not remember a time when I had felt so angry. And while it should have felt refreshing to return to my demon state of emotion, at the same time I sorrowfully faced the fact that my human life, existence, this brief dream had ended all too soon.  
  
/ / / / / / / / / / / / Author's note:  
  
Good. I actually think I have a plot going. Yes, I know this chapter was very boring, lots of talk and deliberation, but I actually think I did a lot of development in this. I commend you to have reached the end of this with your head still in one piece *grins*. Hopefully I'll have the next chapter up soon.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	4. Half and Half

Ch.4: Half and Half  
  
I didn't need the IQ of Kuwabara to figure out that Yuusuke (and Koenma) would be angry at my decision.  
  
The leader of the Urameshi Team paced and prowled in front of me like a unwilling tiger in a cage. After a moment he stopped, looked up at me - no, downright GLARED at me - and said for the umpteenth time, "You just CAN'T! It's not POSSIBLE that you would leave Shiori here for some high- and-holy revenge trip to Makai that could take god-knows-how-long and before you know it, your mom's dead and you'll be regretting you went to Makai in the first place. Plus", here he pinned me with a very true statement, "if Mukuro doesn't want you to see Hiei, then she'll damn well do anything in her power to keep you away from him. Cunning isn't going to hide you from her, Kurama. You know very well how her information network runs."  
  
And I did. Mukuro had the most extensive network of informants that I'd ever seen in all of my thousand-or-so years of experience. Usually a demon couldn't get information just by asking; he also needed a hefty sum of money. Not only had Mukuro somehow recruited all of those people who were willing to be informants, but they were informants that went by only a little pay. In a strange way, either by fear or perhaps just respect, she had gained the loyalty of those who answered up to her. That was her greatest power: persuasion. She understood how demon minds worked, all those little accountant minds that added and subtracted money just as surely as they would decide to kill someone in an instant. Even I hadn't been able to prevent corruption in the ranks of Yomi's hierarchy, all those years ago.  
  
Yomi. I supposed that he was someone I could turn to when I went to Makai. But all the same, I could build up my name again alone, as I had done before. There was no need to go bothering where I didn't need to poke into. And it wasn't like I wanted to go whining anywhere to beg for instant status and money. I could build that up again. I had my caches, and not all of them could have been broken into in these last fifteen years, even if I hadn't checked them for some time.  
  
And, the human side of me now knew the story of how I had blinded him, so I felt more guilty than I ever had as Youko Kurama. It wasn't as if he had forgiven me, though - it was just that I would have made a better heir than the average demon off of the street.  
  
[You say it doesn't matter  
  
Then tell me what does]  
  
I stared Yuusuke straight in the eye. "It doesn't matter after this. My place was never in Ningenkai anyway."  
  
"Like hell!", he exclaimed in return. "Maybe you are a demon through and through, but haven't you wanted to be a full human sometimes? You see them all from a third person perspective, right? You always have. You watch them like they're biological specimens to be studied or something. But through all of your analysis, you can't possibly tell me straight without lying that you never wanted to stay her forever. Maybe human lives are short - but you can see, can't you? Their lives are so much fuller. And now - I know you feel this - you're going to leave your mother? The one that's stayed by your side and you said you'd protect? I thought this was the one thing that you couldn't POSSIBLY give up! I thought you'd wait until she'd died, at least."  
  
There came a red pain in the region where my human heart resided. Absently I placed my hand over it and scrunched the starched uniform over it. It HURT, hurt more than any physical pain that I had ever experienced. And somehow, the youko inside of me was surprised - perhaps humans did not have the ability to run and to hide and fight like a demon could, but certainly their raw willpower, their foolish loyalty and their emotions lent them more dependable strength than any massive army. Constantly, I was surprised at the amount of feelings I felt for those people around me, and constantly I was asking the question: When did they get so close? When did they start to matter? Those changes, so insignificant at first glance, had turned me into something completely un-demon.  
  
And it wasn't just fun and games for the youko anymore, either. The youko didn't want to go back to Makai, to that hit-and-run lifestyle. I wanted to stay here, because somehow I had found something that Makai never had, something that was only 'human', in all senses of the word - kindness, compassion, forgiveness. Never had these feelings risen so strongly - before, it had simply been 'mercy' on those who challenged me. Opponents now I almost viewed as friends, seeing their own strong wills and their tenacity to live and to survive to become the best - much like me, so much that I wonder in different circumstances, could we have been friends?  
  
"It doesn't matter anymore", I whispered softly more to myself than to Yuusuke, completely contrary to what I was feeling inside of my heart and thinking in my mind. It was almost as if I were doing this against my will, doing it because my past told me I still had a reputation to keep as the Youko Kurama. And as my hesitation grew, I wondered just how much of me had already become human.  
  
[And why that isn't what  
  
You've been thinking of]  
  
"Protection. You've saved Shiori from at least ten different people who came to sabotage you in the last, what, three years? What's going to happen when you leave? DON'T YOU CARE?"  
  
"I do!", I blurted, very human-like and very un-Youko-Kurama. "I care, because I know she showed me compassion, a lesson I learned most reluctantly and came to value the most. What she has taught me as the human Shuiichi Minamino has replaced the core of Youko Kurama's cruel ways. . ." And here I found no more to say.  
  
". . .and so you're afraid that if you go back to Makai, those cruel tendencies will return." He gave a snort. "Simple answer to that: don't go back, then, if you're so scared. Frankly, I think you should go back, have a nice little vacation there, and then come back after a few months or so. Do it during the summer or something. Rediscover your Youko side and how it's changed over the years or something. Doesn't do you any good to be cooped up in Ningenkai all the time."  
  
"That's not the problem", I protested lightly. "The problem is Hiei -"  
  
"- the problem was never about revenge against Hiei. It's always been you, Kurama, torn between Makai and Ningenkai like that. I, on the other hand, have been in Ningenkai so long it won't hurt to stay a little longer and see the rest of those people out of their skins and into holes six feet under, I don't feel the pull of returning to Makai as strong as you or Hiei do because I've never felt as if I've belonged there. Hiei is just an excuse, Kurama, face it. Even before this you were thinking of returning to Makai."  
  
My face burned in a very human-like way. I had been shamed, shamed in the face of myself! All that he had said was true, that I had wanted to return to Makai, to my native world, even as I fought for Shiori. As Yuusuke went on to dissect how I should keep that nationalism away from my mind for another ten years or so just so that I could see Shiori safely out of this world, I could feel that trembling fear that I could never keep this at bay any longer. It wasn't that I missed the landscape of Makai - those forests, those deserts, those mountains I saw every time I went on a mission with the Urameshi Team - it was the heart of Makai that I missed, that recklessness of a demon with a lifespan to spare. I knew now that if I went back there now, I would bring my own human sympathies along with me. That would not be beneficial in a fight if I was trying to avoid killing civilians - but it would assuage the guilt within me that I had always had as Youko Kurama before the human incarnation. I wanted to see for myself how I had changed.  
  
How in the world had I come to harbor so many fears? Humanity had made me extremely cautious. How much of me could I claim was demon, and how many parts human? I was frightened, most of all, that I would be treated as an abomination in both worlds, belonging to no one but myself. And it was also here that I hoped that Hiei would come back to me, because if this ever happened I would need him.  
  
What did I want, what did I want? All of those things that others expected of me had seemed to come on hold - now it was only me that mattered. But which 'me'? I knew that before long, the human side of me would sympathize once again with Hiei, and so I had to make a decisive decision before that time. The spotlight was on my wishes, but it seemed all the time in the world would never make the right choice pop up before my eyes - but of course it never would. This was my choice.  
  
I bent my head into my hands and felt the merging of all the world's voices clambering in my head, and felt more uncertain than I had ever been in my entire life. In my mind, I began to see there was no more truth or falsity inside of me, it was all inside of my head, and all inside of my heart.  
  
/ / / / / / / / / / / Author's note:  
  
Well, another chapter cranked out. I'm pretty sure where this is going now. . .but my muses could change at any time. Glad to say it won't be the regular fic, it'll be something sprung from this noggin *taps head*. . .but I've frequently found that my ideas can be a bit bizarre. So, whatever. Hope you enjoyed.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	5. The Last One

Just two questions before I start the chapter: Avalon Brook Clark and Arikia (I'm not sure if you're the same person), question number one: if you don't like it, why are you reading it? Do you do this to ALL of the yaoi fanfiction you happen upon (if so, you must be busy! You'll never catch them all this way!)? And second of all: JUST how OLD are you? Because if you're telling me that gay people should be condemned, you certainly should rethink how you judge and value other people. And the excuse, "Kurama and Hiei just anime people, I can say what I want about them" isn't going to work here, because there are real people out there who have personalities, beliefs and feelings just like the said anime characters, and if you speak against Kurama and Hiei's here, you're speaking against those real people in the world as well. And no, I will not write to you or visit your website. I believe this is sufficient enough chastisement. Oh, yes, you spelled "lying" wrong. If you're going to flame me, at least make it look professional.  
  
And to the rest of you, you have encouraged me so much. I cannot possibly tell you how I appreciate it.  
  
Now, before I start a lecture about how homosexuality is NOT wrong, I'll give you the chapter.  
  
Ch.5: The Last One  
  
[You say it's never easy  
  
Then tell me what was]  
  
And so, after I made Yuusuke promise to look after Shiori for me, all that was left was to tell Shiori herself.  
  
I had remained her purely human son after all of these years, her quiet but caring son Shuiichi, and I knew now more than ever that I was doing something that was purely selfish. I was not considering her feelings at all, and the human inside of me was remarkably composed, dry- eyed and resigned. And the youko side of me was as well, and somehow I had never felt as peaceful as I had now.  
  
It was like dying a second time, that bustle of living and constant fear of dying even within the most stouthearted of warriors. Strangely reminiscent of the first time I had died from a hunter's gunshot, staring up at the sky and deciding maybe it would just be better to die instead of heaving my soul back up into the skies of Ningenkai to find another body to possess. And in a way, I WAS dying again - I was leaving Ningenkai now, after seventeen years of learning to live, fighting and crying over this world that I used to think was useless, pathetic. My death as Shuiichi Minamino had come, though I would be taking that human with me all the way to Makai before he finally died.  
  
I could not tell her the truth about my true form as Youko Kurama, even as a parting gift to tell her that her compassion during the childhood of my human life had not been in vain, that the cruel youko inside of me had indeed changed with her quiet teachings of human virtues and values. I could not possibly explain how many times I had worried for her when one remedy did not work, forcing me to try the other fifty that I knew for the common cold and cough, and dreading the descent into the remedies for life- long diseases. Truly, I had brought this upon her, and it had taken me long enough to see what she was trying to tell me - something completely human, something that the demon could not have possibly begun to understand if it hadn't been for the human that began to grow as my second conscience as well. There was something that humans had that demons could not understand unless they had come on pilgrimage here, like me: the human heart.  
  
She would not have understood. So instead I told her simply that I was going to go away for a long time, out of sight and out of contact, and that she should not try to look for me. Immediately she ran into the list of typical maternal worries: if I had been doing something illegal and had to flee the country, if I had ties with undesirable people, advice about how I should go to the police and turn yourself in. All the time she spoke, I could see the slow dawning fear in her eyes - had the cruel five year Shuiichi of old returned? And this trip - would it lead to my eventual death in a place far out of her reach and out of her radius of help, who would I turn to?  
  
The not-youko-not-human inside of me cried and laughed at the same time. No, little mother of my seventeen years past, nothing but Hiei could have wrenched me from you. The five year old that I had been, loving to torture the squirrels and the bugs that I found in the ground, even threatening Shiori with a knife once - that side of me was gone forever, past history. It wasn't that cruelty didn't still run through my youko blood; rather, it was now strictly controlled with the bonds of human morals. But for the second question, I had no answer. Perhaps this chase of Hiei into the wilds of Makai and for this desperate quest to find my own identity - not the cruel Youko Kurama, not the cringing Shuiichi Minamino - the quest to find my own strength as Kurama, a fusion of demon and human. So far I had fought battles in the name of Kurama but had been controlled by either the pure demon or by the pure human sides of me - where did Kurama belong? I needed, more than I needed to find Hiei, to find myself and who Kurama had become.  
  
"Mother, it's not so easy. It's my own personal problem, just a fight with a friend who's gone around the world to make trouble for others. I just feel like I need to set things right with him", I told her, but I had the feeling that the pain in my eyes was seen clearly by her that this was no ordinary fight, and this was no ordinary son. For the longest time, I had seen that suspicion in her thoughts and her dreams that her son, her extraordinary son was more than human - as was the truth. I guarded Youko Kurama from her for the longest time because it was the only part of me that was still completely demon. No, it is not that easy, little mother, to leave you to chase down that person inside of me whose name I know but street address I do not have.  
  
She looked down, a little hurt, but after a little bit she looked back at me. Every line in her face, I felt, was caused by me. Every line I drew into the corners of her eyes, into the dimples of her cheeks, into the growing frailness of her hands and her eyes - this was the woman that had come to love me, the one I finally could bring myself to love back. Always I had felt as if this face was something that I had drawn myself a long time ago, perhaps as a far-off vision of a person that I could someday trust with the innocent child that still remained within me. This was the face that I could love, that I had created with all of my heart, and would carry around with me forever. To see her now with that fear of me, a son who should have been no more than a regular human, both shook me and saddened me. She would never be my little mother again.  
  
I could see her eyes now, that slow suspicion giving way to a sudden revelation. "Yes, I can see this is no ordinary friend." And then she smiled, but her eyes were hollow, clearly still thinking I could not be solved so easily. "Do tell me her name when you finally catch up with her." And then as if that settled everything, she stepped primly into the kitchen to prepare her regular tea. Her body was rigid, a form I had grown so used to seeing firm but loving. There seemed to be angles in her elbows and hips as she walked now, or perhaps that was only because I was seeing her through my tears?  
  
She was telling me without words that until I told her the truth, she would continue to keep this new distance between us. A final ultimatum before I left for wherever I was going. I could not possibly lie to her if I decided to tell her. She was thinking, if this Shuiichi really is my son, my HUMAN son, then he will tell me. But I was not human, a century- old fox demon lived inside of me. I would not tell her.  
  
[Is it never worth the pain?  
  
Could you believe it was?]  
  
To see her now, her eyes full of guarded wariness, her smiles full of cold suspicion - I felt that it was better that I never returned home at all to face her falsities. But I forced myself to see her, to see past her façade and see that she did still love me, that somehow the face before me was still the one that I trusted the most in the world. And it couldn't be said without lying that I returned her coldness with a freezing winter of my own, though the youko inside of me clambered that Shiori needed to be 'taught a lesson'. I could not possibly bring myself to harm her even in these last days before my departure, could not possibly do anything but love her all the more. Though I had not given any select date to leave, I knew that it could not be long. My youko side was not known to be patient.  
  
I forced myself to be completely human in these last days in Ningenkai, focusing solely on school and family, feeling nothing but the purest of humanity come into me. I fed on all the sights and sounds of Ningenkai knowing perhaps tomorrow I would decide to leave. And as the ache of leaving grew heavier in my chest, the pain of leaving became sharp and insistent that I stay. Somewhere inside of me, I clung to that thread of one certainty that I had to leave someday. And all the time, I wondered if I had done one more kind thing when I was younger, would Shiori had accepted now me for not telling her the full truth?  
  
I felt as if I could not have been the more perfect son in all of this time. Every meal I cooked, cleaned and slaved as if it were my last, telling myself constantly that at least I wait until the end of the semester and the beginning of summer vacation to leave, trivial little human things like that. But suddenly it seemed they were humongous, time- consuming activities, taking up all ends of my life, and I felt as if I had truly discovered humanity's love for excitement; they found it in another way, through simply being human.  
  
I knew that when I went to Makai and disappeared from all ends of Ningenkai, my little mother would regret her words. I knew that she did love me and was worried for me even as she tortured me with the pretense that nothing was wrong. I knew that these trials I had, these things that I had given up in my life in Ningenkai would make the discovery of Kurama's identity even sweeter. I knew that when it came right down to it, I was simply afraid that I would give too much up for this mad chase in Makai.  
  
I occupied myself with human tasks, each day hearing the youko in me start to writhe in impatience, and knew the time could not come any sooner. The human side of me clung to Ningenkai's life like a desperate man, as did Kurama. And as my impatience to begone built in me, my pain doubled as well. Perhaps this was the last 'A' I would ever receive on an assignment, perhaps this was the last time I would smile and shake this person's hand, perhaps this was the last meal I would ever make for my little mother. . .  
  
/ / / / / / / / / / / Author's notes:  
  
Grr. Another chapter done. Okay, I need to go to bed now. I'm sorry for all those who had to see that note at the top. . .I was feeling rather vicious at the moment I was reading that review. Still, my views have not changed from the above. Towards the end, I was just going around in circles, sorry if that was a bit boring. If you catch any spelling/grammar mistakes, please tell me. Suggestions for improvement are always loved. Thank you for reading.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


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